


Stockholm Syndrome

by Triss_Hawkeye



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 01:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3272324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triss_Hawkeye/pseuds/Triss_Hawkeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's possession of Clint Barton in his invasion of Earth has unintended repercussions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clint

**Author's Note:**

> This fic picks up after Avengers Assemble, but was written before Thor 2: The Dark World, so does not tie into following continuity.

She found him on the balcony. He’d often sit there, looking out over the city, bow in hand as if enemies would burst out of the sky at any moment. His face was darker than the evening sky, his furrowed brow adding years to his age.

She walked softly, as she always did, but with enough movement to let him know she was there. She sat down next to him, a little way off, leaving space. For a while there was silence.

"I hate him. I’m glad he’s gone."

She nodded, and said nothing.

"But… I keep thinking of him. I wonder what’s happening to him. I hope that he’s doing OK. And I hate it."

He turned to look at her, fear and confusion etched uncharacteristically into his face.

"I miss him, Natasha. Why the hell do I miss him?"


	2. Loki

The cell was bare, except for one cross-legged occupant. Thor had long ago run out of things to say, and there was no use trying to get a response from a gagged man, so he stood outside in silence, watching Loki uneasily through the bars in the door. His adopted brother was somehow managing, even in his bound state, to radiate serenity and calm.

The truth was, Loki’s mind was anything but calm.

A mere mortal may have regarded the Asgardian cell as a simple physical prison, but the reality lay deeper. Wards in the walls muffled and muted the flow of magic Loki was so used to drawing through himself. Wards he himself had helped to design - oh, the bitter irony was certainly not lost on him.

He wasn’t stupid. He always knew a way to get around walls of his own devising, but some strange part of him had been eager to please the day they were made, not to mention that his own magic was heavily interwoven with that of the wise women who had also lent themselves to the warding.

So Loki sat calm and quiet, directing his anger towards his task, and prepared himself for a long stint of carefully unpicking his invisible cage. He did not need to worry about time - Odin, ever one for a fuss, had summoned Asgardians from far and wide to attend Loki’s trial and have their say in his humiliation. Gathering them all would occupy the All-Father for the next little while, and for the moment Thor had ceased his prattling. All in all, things could be a lot worse.

The thought had not even left his mind when he felt it. A strange emptiness. Puzzled, and irritated at the interruption, Loki turned his energies from his cage for a moment, and searched it out.

He sent whatever magic he could gather like tendrils through the plane of his thoughts, cool and analytical, searching, probing possibilities. On the plane of his emotions though, the disturbance was giving out ripples of… no, it definitely wasn’t loneliness, he decided forcefully - the continuing bother of Thor’s presence was confirmation of that - but it was something similar, as though he missed someone else.

And just like that, he found it.

The staff had been a familiar weight in his hand and mind for so long now that its absence was noticeable. Like a tree, it had sent roots into his thoughts each time he made a connection with someone’s mind. Only a few - after Barton and Selvig, he’d only needed to brainwash one or two other humans before the promise of money, power and payback had ensnared the rest. And now, with the presence of the staff gone, the roots were slowly fading and retreating as the connection was lost.

All except two.

He’d felt them go. He’d felt the jolt, the tearing as some outside force had torn apart his influence over them. And the broken roots were still embedded in his mind like shards of glass. Barton and Selvig weren’t here - they were no longer beside him, fighting for him, doing his work. Their absence rang in his mind like the keening of some pitiful creature as the roots dug in their claws and called to his magic, called to him to fix what was broken, to renew the connection.

He focussed his mind and gathered what energy he could to prise them from his consciousness, but they simply held tighter, pulled on his power and cried louder. Swiftly he withdrew. The full powers of the staff were not known to him - it would require his full strength and much study before he could hope to eradicate what it left behind. And he had already made it worse.

Loki slowly opened his eyes and saw them in his cell with him, like ghosts. The two men that used to be his stood before him, almost too faint to see but none-the-less there. Selvig watched him with his arms folded, and Barton stood with bow in hand, his sharp eyes boring into his own.

The shade of the archer smiled. “Miss us?”

Thor watched with growing concern as he saw Loki’s head begin to move from side to side, staring in wild dismay at absolutely nothing.


End file.
